Some Solved Riddles Remain Unresolved

Conundrum: A riddle involving a pun; a question with a hypothetical answer; a difficult problem.

Conundrum: A riddle involving a pun; a question with a hypothetical answer; a difficult problem.

I've had my share of conundrums in the search for my ancestors, although I can't remember any puns.

Most of the time I enjoy these challenges, and I approach them with a gaming attitude, but a few of them have come back to haunt me, usually because I've made an erroneous assumption.

My great-grandfather became my first challenge. At first, all I knew about him was on his gravestone — Peter Morris, 1864-1937. I accepted that information as fact and entered it into my family tree, then sent it to every online site created for that purpose. Why not? It was written in stone!

I later discovered that his wife's Bible listed Peter's birth year as 1867, but Peter's death certificate listed a birth year of 1865.

Over the years, I found Peter in six of the U.S. federal censuses, tracked down his 1895 marriage license application in Bloomsburg and located a baptismal record from a Philadelphia church. I now had a total of 11 sources listing six different birth years. His baptismal record nailed it, of course, as he was baptized just three days after his birth — in 1866. His gravestone still fools the unsuspecting.

Which is worse — an incorrect birth year on a gravestone, or incorrect dates on an altar cross donated to a church?

A church was gifted with a beautiful, golden, 3-foot-high altar cross with an inscription that began, "In loving memory of my grandfather "¦" born 1772, died 1857. There were several names and dates of the "begat" variety, including that of the woman who donated the cross. Her grandfather was also my grandfather but with four "greats" in front of it. I once again accepted the information without question. It must be accurate — it was engraved in gold. Years later, his baptismal record proved that he was actually born in 1774 and his will was probated in 1856. Oops!

Great-nana Morris collected newspaper clippings of everything that caught her fancy — from apple cider recipes to sewing patterns. She also had many obituaries of family, friends and neighbors. I found one clipping for the obituary of Margaret Morris. My father remembered that it was the name of his uncle's ex-wife, but as far as he knew she was still alive. Dad flipped the obituary over and pointed out that it was more likely saved for the recipe on the back. I went from feeling foolish to feeling spooked, when the obituary of the real Margaret "Aunt Peg" Morris appeared in the next day's newspaper.

I also found an old ledger in Great-nana's collection. Most of the pages in the book were carefully printed or written accounts of bartering chores between neighbors — half a day plowing or a day of harvesting or clearing a field — but the first three pages contained a beautifully scripted poem. It told the story of a soldier returning home to his sweetheart. The poem was dated 1867 and signed by my great-great-grandfather's sister Anna. I recognized some of the Columbia County locations mentioned in the poem — the local river and the township where my ancestors lived. Some words were unfamiliar and a bit of research showed them to have a Scottish origin, which made sense because Anna's maternal line was from Scotland.

For years I proudly shared this heirloom of poetic caligraphy with family and other history buffs — including one Civil War re-enactment enthusiast — until the day I discovered that the poem was actually "The Soldier's Return" written in 1793 by Scottish author Robert Burns. Here I'd been passing it off as part of my literary heritage when it was more likely that Anna had written down the lyrics from a popular song and she changed a few words to give it more local color.

Robert Burns, regarded as the national poet of Scotland, was both a poet and a composer, who authored many songs, including "Auld Lang Syne."

My family only plagiarizes from the best.

Valerie Perry, an amateur genealogist of Stroudsburg, has been tracing her family tree since 1978. Email: aq.vperry@gmail.com